Sean Major-Campbell | Christians having pride with faith

Understandably, some readers expressed concern re last Sunday’s column with regard to Christian pride and Pride Month. Some responded quoting popular clobber texts. Clobber texts are those used or weaponised to condemn people of LGBT+ identity. They are also used to secure a confident sense of being saved above “those people”.

One responded quoting Romans 1:26-27, noted, “All I know is that Paul says: Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

When we have been misinformed with a limited view of the text, we must be patient with our sisters and brothers who do not have the time to explore other dimensions of textual interpretation. The term ‘homosexual’ is new to the Bible. It was not known in the time of Paul. However, same-sex sexual activity was known to the Greco-Roman world.
Paul found it important to make a distinction between Christian practices and pagan worship. In his day, plenty of same-gender sexual activity was done in the context of such worship that included prostitution and the abuse of enslaved people. The pagan practice saw dinner parties marked by drunken orgies which honoured pagan gods. For the Christian, this was not a requirement in offering worship to the One, true God!

Similarly, the practice of pederasty was not considered consistent with Christian teaching. In this tradition older men had sexual relations with a young boy who was not yet showing signs of puberty. Since his features were not yet defined as “adult masculine”, those with patriarchal concerns were quite comfortable with the practice. Again, Paul condemned such practices which in our modern era would amount to pedophilia.

In the modern age, the celebration of same-gender loving people is not to be confused with pagan idolatry and the exploitation of children. Paul’s concern was that Christians understood the difference between what was expected for pagan idolatry, and what was expected for worship of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A concerned pastor has asked, “Are you familiar with 1 Corinthians 6:9-10?” He further asked, “What are you going to tell God about these verses?” The verses in the New International Version (NIV) note, “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

I did not know that last Sunday’s column would move us into Bible study, but here we are. These same verses are presented by the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVC): “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Translations matter. Different versions present with different concerns. One may even ask why certain Greek terms were mistranslated to say ‘male prostitutes’ and ‘sodomites’? Scholars agree that the Greek word, “arsenekoiti”, which translates “man bed”, refers to temple prostitution activity to include ritual rape. The term was categorically not about same-gender relationships between consenting partners. Opposite-gender temple prostitution would have been just as bad since again; Christian worship did not require any form of prostitution to honour God.

It is also to be noted that there were words in Paul’s time which he might have used if he specifically wanted to address same-gender loving relationships. However, this was clearly not his concern in what has become clobber texts. Is it okay for church to have these honest conversations? Will there be a fear of scholarship if the clobber power of the text is diminished?

The Most Rev. Dr John Holder, former bishop of Barbados and former archbishop of the West Indies, in his keynote address, ‘Examining the Church and Anti-Sodomy Laws across the Commonwealth (at the Intimate Conviction Conference’, aptly noted, “Context is the key to helping us to understand the rejection of homosexual behaviour that we find in Leviticus, Romans and I Corinthians, and to a lesser extent, I Timothy. It seems to me that to let go of the context is to convert these references into the type of weapon against homosexuals that they were not intended to be.”

OUR DILEMA OF
ASTORAL CARE

People of religious faith may find helpful, David K. Switzer’s work, Pastoral care of gays, lesbians, and their families. He observes, “A major dilemma for us pastors is that we do not feel equally comfortable with the poor, the uneducated, those with delusions and hallucinations. The dying, gays and lesbians, those expressing intense anger, those who arouse sexual feelings in us, child abusers, women batterers, and others. In addition to the conscious desire to pull away from certain individuals, we often do not even realise our unconscious emotional blocks. Our words and other behaviours growing out of our anxiety, anger, disgust, pity, desire to be their saviour, and so forth adversely affect the people to whom we go or to whom we respond and those to whom we do not go and do not respond, thus diminishing the effectiveness of our pastoral caring. What we do is no longer a demonstrative proclamation of the Word, but a negative and confusing message to the other person.”

Fr Sean Major-Campbell is an Anglican priest and advocate for human rights and dignity. Please send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and seanmajorcampbell@gmail.com